California draws on the spoken word recordings of Jack Kerouac in his album ‘Blues and Haikus’ where, he says a phrase in dialogue with a saxophone, which responds to the haikus themselves. This piece often draws influence from both strands of the album, the sax and the voice, where I use my own take on either source to create my vision of what I’m listening to. The piece responds to the natural rhythm and cadence of both saxophone and voice which helps shape the identity of the piece through stark differences in texture, sonority or technique. The piece also takes influence from many different sources such as bebop, free jazz, aleaoricism and art music, which I blend to create a cumulation of ideas all relating to the same spoken point.
Rather than following the convention, California explores how tension can be created through sources often thought to be concise and the way in which multi-disciplinary art can be molded.